


be with me now as the horses run until they forget they are horses

by Maerhys



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Underage Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maerhys/pseuds/Maerhys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Dean will do anything to make sure that Sam has what he needs. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	be with me now as the horses run until they forget they are horses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nyoka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyoka/gifts).



> Thank you to Ash for the wonderful beta work. Title from Richard Siken. This story fulfills _Nebraska_ for my 50 States of Supernatural challenge.

Dean watches his brother from dirty window panes caked with mud and soot. Outside a mongrel dog digs at the frozen ground with front paws. He licks at the melting snow and crushed pine cones as Sam whistles for him to fetch the twig slicing through the gray sky above their heads. The dog is thin like Sam but broken with crooked legs that wobble and won't walk right. Pausing, the mutt whimpers, sniffs, howls as Sam tip-toes closer, over the lawn of amber glass and crushed beer cans. Dean shuts his eyes as the thick curtains billow across the frosted glass.

He wanders into the kitchen, sliding in the streaks of clay fresh from Sam's sneakers, and stops short at the empty refrigerator. The cold air wafts over his face as he peers into each corner and drawer but there's nothing there. A pack of batteries, a milk jug of holy water sit on the top shelf, but there's nothing edible. Dean snaps open the cupboard and counts the cans again. Beans, creamed corn, sliced potatoes tinned in shiny aluminum covered with scratchy paper – USDA commodities left by the hunter who owns the house. John had said, two weeks at the most, just relax and keep your brother out of trouble. Dean had nodded, anxious for time to sleep, work on shooting with his left hand, fiddle with the Impala. He scrubs a hand across his face, fingers numb from the October winds slipping through the cracks in the floorboards and window sills. John needed to take the car, offering some vague reasoning, and the new hunter and John skidded down the forking road and out of Whiteclay before Dean blinked.

Listening for Sam's shouts to the dog over the howls of the mutt and the wind, Dean falls into the chair at the Formica table, rocking against the pits in the warped floor, as he empties the coffee can and counts the change, separating the silver from the copper, building tiny towers of coins that topple over. The bills are crumpled and stink of stale coffee. Eight dollars and fifty-nine cents. It's not enough for a pack of hot dogs and a loaf of bread in the four by four town. He swallows his pride and goes to dress in his best clean clothes, tries for that earnest smile that says good kid, honest kid in need of work.

"Sam, I'm going out," he hollers from the crumbling concrete stoop. Sam waves, caught up in a tug-of-war with the dog and a stripped switch. Dean shrugs on his jacket, the Colt carefully concealed under layers of cotton the heavy fall of his leather jacket. He focuses on the sound of his boots grinding the sharps of glass into pebbles, the echo of the steel-toes punting a series of cans down to the edge of the lawn, and the swish, clang, crunch black out the sound of Sam's breathless laughter.

Dean walks the same stretch of road four times to check in with all four liquor stores. More shack than store, they blend together and seem to be run by the same lanky guy with greasy hair and a beer gut, aged and gruff. Stubby fingers slide over the condensation on the beer bottles they load into the walk-in coolers as they tell Dean that he's too young to sell liquor and they have enough trouble with authorities. Each owner tells a wicked tale of near shoot-outs with the local police, tribal cops, feds undercover, but the details don't matter much they all say with a shrug. Whiteclay exists by teetering on the edge of boundaries and they aren't going to be the one to call down more trouble by hiring a kid. Dean jams his hands into his jean pockets and nods before he moves on. The cracked-open street is empty. No one lives in Whiteclay; it's a drive-thru liquor mart with a zip code.

At the last store, he asks about any work – farm or cars – before he uses the eight dollars on a bag of rice and a box of powdered milk. The owner shakes his head – nothing 'round these parts – and finishes his latest sob story as he checks Dean out, his sweaty hand lingering on Dean's as he palms the faded bills. When the guy licks at his split lip and tells him about the corner at the edge of the annex where Whiteclay fades into the county line, Dean doesn't haul the asshole over the scuffed counter and blacken his other eye. He casts his eyes to the floor, fingers the pennies jingling in his pocket before he grabs the plastic bag and shoves out the door.

— — —

Three nights pass into a fourth day when the sky sheds snow, silky white flurries across smears of gray clouds, until the flakes flit to ground, melt into the dead leaves, run off into the red clay. Sam hovers in the doorways watching his brother open cans and carefully scrape every bit of beans and potatoes into a pot with a scorched bottom that smokes when he turns on the stove. He wants to ask about the furnace, when did it stop breathing the heavy heat into the house and can Dean fix it, but he opts for another flannel shirt that Sam realizes isn't his when the hem hits the middle of his thigh. Dean's dressed in layers, sweats and Dad's fleece-lined canvas coat, too. Even under the bulk of fabric, Sam sees that he's slumped, shoulders stooped as he slides a wooden spoon through the food as it begins to bubble and pop. 

"Not even close to done, Sammy, so go take your shower. If you don't use up all the hot water, there'll be hot food when you're out," Dean says, but he never looks up from the food.

Sam huffs out a sigh, shivering at the thought of slithering out of even one layer of clothes, but he pivots on his heel and pads into the bathroom. He unlocks and cracks the window, bursts of wind to wipe away the musty smell of mildew. The faucet drips rusty water, ringing the steel with a rough crust that cuts into the pads of his fingers. Pushing his clothes off into a puddle on the floor, he steps over the lip of the tub and into the spray of lukewarm water. Stretching his hands out across the slick tiles, he coughs, chest aching with congestion and the slide of stone-hard grief that he associates with Whiteclay, which seems to be the one-word synonym for Dean fading away. He opens his eyes to see his hands stretched and spread, grasping but slipping, as he tries to build his brother from the water, waxy soap, and stray hairs. Sam watches the whirlpool at his feet, a river rushing from the head and down the drain.

He keeps the threadbare towel over his sopping hair and pulls on his clothes after stumbling from the shower. The cotton sticks to his skin and his fingers shake as he pushes each button through the fraying slits. The flannel shirt goes on first this time, direct hit to his skin, and Sam pulls the collar up through the neck of the other shirts so that the tip brushes his ear lobes. He hunches down into the softness, and the molasses sweet scent of Dean after he sleeps seeps from the cloth and into Sam's cheek.

Dean is at the sink, water filled in to rim and sloshing over as he scrubs as the pots and pans. Sam curls into the chair farthest from the window and door, elbows on the table, feet crossed under his thighs. The bread, generic white but soft, is open and a slice peeks out of the plastic sleeve. Sam carefully folds it in half and then again until it's a puffy square that melts in his mouth.

"Eat before it gets cold. I already washed the pot, so no warming anything else up tonight," Dean says as he dries his hands off on the hem of an old tee shirt he's used as a towel and pot holder.

Sam dips into the bowl with a bent spoon, shoveling the bean and potato dish into his mouth and swallowing, not bothering to chew or taste. Dean salts the door and window as Sam eats. He looks up from his empty dish as Dean retraces runes on the floor with blue chalk.

"When are you eating?" Sam asks quietly, eyes tracing the tracks of gravy at the bottom of his bowl.

Dean looks at him sharply before he rolls his eyes at Sam and mutters something about little brothers being a pain in his ass. "I ate while you were in the shower, couldn't wait. Straight from the pot, but I left you plenty so don't complain, Sam."

He doesn't complain. The accusation is too near and may slip out if he says anything at all. Sam nods and goes to wash out his dish and spoon, and he doesn't look back at the twisting shadow blessing the runes, tasting the chalk dust as it scurries into the air.

In Whiteclay, they share a double bed that's less bed and more a mattress on wooden pallets. The mattress is stained but the sheets are clean and smell like lemon and black tea leaves. Rolling into the sag of the mattress, Sam forgets that he's missing school and Dad's routine sparring and drills because Dean is less than a foot away. He doesn't have to pray for a nightmare to wake him up so that he can mosey over to his brother's bed, shaking and hopeful. Dean doesn't mind, he says; doesn't mind that Sam plays with the junkyard dogs or reads all day and forgets to take out the trash or rinse out the tub.

He wishes it were simple; maybe Whiteclay softened Dean, but it seems to be carving at him, taking him from Sam in pieces that just go missing without a trace. Sam scoots closer, skates his shivering hand over Dean's hip to slip his fingers down to Dean's empty belly. The skin is soft, curved into the hollow between his hips and ribs. Tears taste salty on his tongue, but Sam doesn't move away from pressing his chest to his brother's spine even as the corners of his eyes crinkle, pooling fat droplets that fall into the dip above his lip before he licks them away.

— — —

Dean brushes the hair that tangles with the kid's eyelashes before he rolls from their bed. Briefly, he wonders what riled Sam up tonight as he sucks on his thumb that wiped away the salty residue of his brother's tears. In the kitchen, Dean slips out of his sweats, peeling off each layer until he comes to the too-tight white tee shirt that is Sam's. The unraveling hem brushes his navel and rides higher when he walks but it shows off his arms and abs, moulds to the curve of his shoulders. He pulls the white briefs – too tight – and jeans from the cabinet above the refrigerator and slides them on, listening for the tear of thread and fabric as he shimmies into them. Dean knows he can't carry his gun, but he shoves Sam's Balisong into his boot so that is nestles into the worn leather as he laces them tightly. He's still not sure about anything except that his boots stay on.

He salts the door from the outside, shivering as the wind hits and chaps his bare skin, musses his hair so that it looks like he rolled out of bed. Dean knows it's not a bad look on him, usually from the way Sam's eyes go liquid under hooded lids when he combs his fingers through it in the morning. He's ready to think about Sam. Dean can't push him too far from his mind, just far enough to the edge that it feels okay to let something else in. This is all for Sam – his brother who can never be that five-year-old boy in red rubber snow boots, clutching their mother's hand, calling out to a fat brown puppy. It's a grief he's made peace with but it lingers in undeveloped photographs of another life. Instead Sam is years older, spare and rawboned as he lumbers around in generic sneakers that never quite fit after gangling dogs that snarl if he gets too close. Dean trips over an empty beer bottle as the image wraps itself around his body like arms snaking under his armpits and clasping hands over his chest.

The county line is easy to find, ditches on either side of the two-lane road. There's a fire feeding on newspapers and empty boxes of wine but it offers the light that the meandering crowd needs to find the lip of the bottle, get the can to the mouth stretched open with hunger. Dean uncrosses his arms and joins the crowd, playing to anyone who looks his way. It doesn't take but ten minutes for a guy, older than John, but shorter than Dean, to make an offer. Dean follows the guy about a yard away from the crowd to an outcrop of weeds that shelters a crumbling barn that still stinking of horses and feed.

The guy runs two fingers over Dean's bottom lip. "Twenty for a suck and if you're any good I gotta friend who will pay more."

Dean nods but plucks a condom from his pocket, holds it between two fingers. "Not a problem, but only with a rubber." He's pushing his luck to the edge but two or three things he knows for sure and he can't do this without a tangible reminder that this is different than how he'd dreamed it up.

The guy grunts his disdain but goes for his belt buckle with one hand as he digs for his wallet with the other. Dean slips the twenty into his boot next to the knife and drops to his knees. He rolls the condom on with teasing fingers and the guy groans like Dean's already swallowed him down. He brackets the guy's hips with his arms, presses his palms against the splintered wood of the barn, and goes to work.

After the guy fills the condom, Dean pulls off without a word, rocks back onto his toes, and shoves up. Dean ignores the babbling praise and nods his head when asked if he wants to go again with the guy's friend. He collapses against the rotting barn, turns to throw up but he only retches, nothing in his belly for days now. Dean pastes on a smile as another guy rambles toward him but this time he doesn't look too close, because he doesn't want to remember the snub nose or crooked teeth when he goes home to Sam.

Sunrise sends everyone scattering like marbles, bouncing off each other as the sun climbs above the horizon. The sound of jalopy engines cranking to a roar as doors slam shut and pebbles skitter under flat tires. Dean picks the gravel out of the cuts on his palms, rubs the ache from his jaw as he bites at the inside of his cheek for a swell of saliva to rinse the latex taste from his mouth. He follows the solid white line painted down the middle of the road all the way into the center of town, counting off twenties before he breaks into a run for the first store he finds open.

— — —

Sam sprawls and then curls into the ragged armchair near the front door, wraps the quilt closer around his shoulders as he traces the scars on his kneecaps. Dean comes in through the back door, plastic bags rustling in the echo of the door clicking shut, dead bolt sliding into its notch, but he's not left the kitchen. Sam doesn't move from the chair until he hears a can drop to the floor and his brother curse softly. He shoves off the quilt, tugs on his socks that are slipping off, and slides into the kitchen.

Dean is stacking canned pasta onto the shelf over the counter that's littered with gallons of milk, boxes of Lucky Charms, hot dogs, and bread. Sam spies a bag of candy on the table. His stomach grumbles, pushing him toward the candy before he trips over the chair when he catches Dean out of the corner of his eye. It's not the tee shirt or the jeans, both too tight and worn for anywhere but the house, or his brother's bare skin that's pimpled by the cold and fading from blue to red as the relative warmth of the house skitters across it. Sam focuses on the knees of the denim, muddy with gravel and glass shard dotting the drying stains, and Dean's lips are swollen like he just came down from a high with the girl next door but he's rubbing his jaw, wincing in pain as the joints pop into place. Sam looks away, grabs at the table where the Formica meets the metal scallop, and digs his fingers into the unmoving surface. He's so fucking stupid and angry with everyone, mostly at himself, never at Dean.

"Dean," he says, pretends that it's not a choked whisper that relays too much.

Dean turns around, slow and pained, as if Sam cut him open by saying his name. "Sammy. What are you doing up already, it's not even eight."

"Woke up and you were gone," Sam says, carefully looking Dean over for blood and cuts, before he squeezes his eyes shut. The skin below Dean's left ear is mottled with a bruise that blooms in the shape of a thumbprint. "Where did you get the money?"

"Sam." It's not a warning or an admission, just his name drug up from somewhere else, toneless and flat.

It's enough that Sam knows for sure now and he imagines his brother with strangers for money. He's sick at the thought, sicker for the jealousy that threads through him, strings him up like a puppet for the buried stone to master. Doesn't wonder why. For Sam. Dean did it for him or he would have gone days ago when the food ran low so that only one of them could eat. Doesn't wonder why. Sam knows that Dad's another two weeks out in the Black Hills and there's no work for fifty miles in any direction. Doesn't wonder why. It doesn't change anything in him, nothing ever could, especially not this, although Sam's sure his brother expects his disgust and rage.

"Okay," he says, moving to stand next to Dean at the counter, almost bumping shoulders. "I'll put this away, go take a shower. I'll make breakfast." It comes out slower, more calculated than he intends but Dean nods and sets down the canned pasta.

Sam stares at the label, memorizes it until he hears the pipes flood with water as the shower faucet creaks and steam rolls out from the crack in the door. He circles the kitchen methodically, putting everything away but a gallon of milk and a box of cereal. He plucks two bowls and two spoons from the pile of clean dishes drying on a flour sack towel.

Time passes in seconds strung out into minutes that don't tick away with orderly precision. Sam blinks when he hears Dean move from the bathroom into their bedroom. He clutches the box of Lucky Charms to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around the box until it's smooshed and torn at the edges. Sam puts a bowl and spoon back, pours cereal into bowl and covers it with just enough milk that it won't get soggy, drowns the grains and marshmallows into the milk with the spoon. He carries it carefully, both hands curved around the ceramic, as he pads down the hallway and through the mostly open door. Dean is slicked wet from his shower, dressed in scrub pants he's used on jobs and another white tee shirt. He sits on the edge of the bed, head in his hands until he looks up at Sam and takes the offered bowl of cereal.

Sam crawls into Dean's spot and lies down, burying his face in the pillow, breathing in the dust and stale sleepy scent of his brother. He's not sure what to do next. Fixing Dean a bowl of cereal seems the least of what he should be doing, but fear of getting it wrong pushes him deeper into the sheets and into the sound of Dean eating kid's cereal from a box with a leprechaun on the front. Sam wiggles under the blanket, stringing words into sentences before letting them slip away; they sound trite or saccharine in his head. He wonders if he can touch Dean, would that be too much, but the thought slips away as the mattress dips behind him, bowing into the weight of another body stretching out. Sam flips over to find Dean on his back, staring at the ceiling.

"Don't wanna talk about it, Sammy," he says, tilting his head slightly towards Sam.

"Okay." And it is. "We don't need to talk about it. Unless you want to." Sam pauses to draw in a ragged breath, his hands slip over his expanding rib cage. "But you can't do it again, Dean. Ever." Exhale.

Dean rolls to his side and looks at Sam sharply, eyes glazed over with unshed tears that turn his eyes into jagged pieces of malachite. "I'll do what I have to do, Sam. Don't ever fucking question me on that. If I have to––" He breaks off but doesn't move away.

"Not anymore. We'll do what we have to do, but not, just not that, Dean." Sam presses his thumb into the bruise on Dean's neck. "You could get hurt, someone could make you–– I don't want you to get hurt. Whoever did this…" Sam trails off, the desire to flay and cut open whoever bruised his brother sweeps over him. He wants to watch the bastard bleed out slowly. Sam lets his revenge fantasy dissipate when Dean groans and grinds into Sam's thumb that is still fitted to the bruise.

Sam stutters, "Can I touch you?" He blushes when he realizes he said it aloud but Dean only nods into his hand that slips down to cup his brother's chin. Sam leans in, placing his hand over Dean's heart and presses his lips over Dean's slightly open mouth. It's awkward and soft, nothing like his jerk-off fantasies where they can't keep their hands off of each other, rough and fast until they fall over only to start again. This is not about his dick or years of waiting and wanting this moment. It's just Dean and Sam, seamless and stitched together by one invisible thread.

Dean's hand curves over the last knob of his spine, urging Sam closer until he's splayed out, leg and arm draped over Dean as he centers his weight in the limbs propped up on the mattress. Dean holds him closer, hauling Sam on top of him until their chests are flush and Sam's toes dig into Dean's shins for leverage as he wiggles one hand under Dean to grasp the nape of his neck and Dean braids the fingers of their left hands together. Sam tries to keep Dean from bearing his weight but Dean runs his hand over Sam's back, climbing under the layers of tee shirts to drag his blunt fingernails over the sweaty skin. Sam groans into the kiss, parting his lips for Dean, mouthing words silently that he needs to say even if Dean can't hear them.

They toss, turn and tangle. Clothes drift to the floor as they lick and taste spurs, blades, jutting bones until they move slower sliding into a languid pattern of kiss, touch, touch, kiss. Sam traces protective runes into Dean's chest with his index finger, willing him to sleep as he cradles Dean's face into the notch of his collarbone. Dean rests, holy, whole against Sam, salty and clean as the third sacrament on his tongue.


End file.
